Page 107 of Caught By the Ruthless Duke
Another tense silence. Then Lady Bardwell stepped forward, hands clasped tightly at her waist.
“We apologize for not considering your feelings. For treating your marriage as though it existed solely for our benefit. For failing to be the parents you needed us to be.”
The words sounded rehearsed, performative, devoid of genuine remorse. But they were words nonetheless. An acknowledgment, however hollow, of years of accumulated hurt.
Cressida found she couldn’t speak past the tightness in her throat.
“Better.” Theodore’s tone remained uncompromising. “Now, leave us. My wife and I require privacy.”
They departed with wounded dignity, Lady Bardwell pausing at the threshold to look back at Cressida with an expression that might have been genuine regret or simply annoyance at being caught. The door closed behind them with a soft click.
The parlor suddenly felt too small, too warm.
Theodore stood near the mantelpiece, his profile sharp in the afternoon light. His hands hung loose at his sides, his jaw still tight.
He’d defended her with fierce protectiveness she’d only dreamed of receiving from her parents. And she had no idea what to say to him.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The door clicked shut behind her parents, leaving a silence that felt too heavy for the small parlor.
Cressida stood near the window, her hands clenched in her skirts, trying to quell the tremor in her limbs.
The confrontation had scraped her raw. Years of suppressed hurt finally voiced, finally acknowledged, even if her parents’ apology had sounded more like capitulation than genuine contrition.
But none of that mattered as much as the man standing near the mantelpiece, watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.
“Thank you.” The words emerged smaller than she’d intended. “For what you did. For making them—” She swallowed. “Thank you.”
Theodore said nothing for a long moment, his dark eyes studying her with that particular intensity that always made her feel simultaneously exposed and seen. Then he stepped forward, closing the distance between them with slow, deliberate strides.
“I think you should go,” she added quickly, moving toward the door. “I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m sure you have other things to do?—”
“No.”
The single syllable stopped her mid-step. She turned back to find him closer now, close enough that she could see the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the slight dishevelment of his cravat, the tension in his jaw that suggested he’d been holding himself together by sheer force of will.
“Theodore,please.” Her voice wavered despite her best efforts. “I can’t do this right now. Whatever you came here to say?—”
“I came to tell you the truth.” His hands flexed at his sides. She recognized the gesture. He was fighting his demons right in front of her. “About Charles… and about what happened to my family. About why I’ve spent seventeen years convinced that trusting anyone was the surest path to destruction.”
Cressida’s breath caught. She’d imagined this conversation countless times over the past few days, but now that it was here, she found herself terrified of what she might hear. Terrified of the hurt it might inflict, terrified of how it might change everything between them.
But she owed him this much. After everything, she owed him her attention.
“All right,” she said quietly, sinking into the nearest chair because her legs suddenly felt unreliable. “I’m listening.”
Theodore moved to the window. For a long moment, he simply stood there, his gaze fixed on something beyond the glass that she couldn’t see. When he finally spoke, his voice had a quality she’d never heard before—stripped of its usual careful control, raw in a way that made her chest ache.
“Charles was my uncle. My… my father’s younger brother.” He paused, his jaw working. “I adored him. He was everything my father wasn’t—warm, charismatic, the sort of man who made you feel like the most important person in the room simply by turning his attention to you. My father was cold, distant, and consumed by his own bitterness. But Charles…” His voice roughened. “Charles treated me like I mattered.”
Cressida watched him, saw the way his shoulders tensed as he forced himself to continue.
“I was seventeen when I discovered the affair. Walked into a room I shouldn’t have entered and found him with my mother.” He turned to face her, and the devastation in his eyes nearly undid her. “They convinced me to keep silent. Said it would destroy the family if anyone knew, said my father would never forgive me for being the one to tell him. And I believed them because I loved them both, and because I was too young and too stupid to see that they were using my affection as a weapon.”
“Theodore—” She started to rise, but he held up a hand, stopping her.
“My father discovered them, eventually. I don’t know how—perhaps it was a servant, or perhaps his suspicions pushed him. He challenged Charles to a duel.” His voice had gone flat now, reciting facts as though they belonged to someone else’s history. “They met at dawn. Both were fatally wounded. My father died in my arms, and his last words to me were a warning never to trust a woman because she would destroy me as my mother had destroyed our family.”
